Building the GCU Sokol, Part 3

UPDATE: I did a quick post a while back on framing out the main decks of the GCU Sokol.

Over the holiday break I’ve started working on the huge model again. This time I framed up the head of the starship. Not the toilet, the front section, where the bridge is located. Alliance starships have removable head sections and so they have their own limited, C Class drives and housing as well as weapons.

For the Sokol, I went off the drawing I have of the ship and got the bottom, front and sides built up, as well as a mounting bracket for the two inch pipe that forms the neck.

This picture shows how I score the plastic to cut it. I have a heavy gauge piece of metal that I clamp to my workbench and use as a cutting guide. It works quite nice, but it’s hard on the old bench.

This shows the pieces of the head section going together with the assistance of some paint bottles and a sand sculpture bottle. Hey, use what you have on hand, right? I use fancy model cement for the glue. But you could use Tester’s model cement too. Later I will put a bunch of braces inside to ensure things stay firm.

If you are familiar with this starship, it should start to look like the Sokol now. Since I’ll wager most folks reading this have never heard of the GCU Sokol, here is a reference drawing.

The boxy weapons pods on the sides of the head have not been constructed yet. I’ll likely use a thinner gauge plastic for them.

My goal for the remaining days of vacation is to get the main superstructure built up and as close to finished as possible. Because that’s my least favorite part of building a model. I prefer to work on the details and this model will have more surface area to detail than any model I’ve built since I built this very starship in cardboard as a kid.